Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Dakuku Peterside, has said the country is yet to optimize the benefits of its natural resources stating that there must be an effective regulation process to achieve such.

Peterside revealed this during a visit to his office by the Alumni Association of the National Institute, (AANI), led by the President, Khaleel Bolaji, in Lagos seeking partnership the agency on policy formulation.

He said the visit is coming at a better time when the agency is repositioning the maritime sector. A time of reforms and repositioning is a time that the agency yearns for ideas to help solve seemingly compressed problems.

“A time when systems are undergoing transformation you need the best of ideas, experience. You need intellectual capacity to transform systems. AANI is in the best position to offer that leverage.”

“Our understandings of the association are those who have passed through the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), which is the gathering of people who have passed the best of grooming in policy making and execution. It is the intersection between managers and leaders, ” he said.

According to him, not all managers are leaders but that transition from being a manager to a leader needs to be facilitated, Adding that upon graduation from NIPSS, you are no longer a manager but a leader in every sphere of life and it becomes some sort of expert of expert in policy making or formulation.

“Ours is a regulatory agency, which is between policymaking, formulation of regulations and compliance,” Peterside said. Earlier in his remarks, Bolaji said NIMASA was chosen because the association believes in the capability of the agency in transforming the Nigerian society for better, stating that members of the association are trained are trained for those legislative responsibility.

He said the decision to partner with NIMASA is aimed at creating researchable solutions to problems bedevilling the nation’s economy. “We have been trained by Nigeria and we believe we have to give back to the society and as the best of professionals there is no association without being immodest that can have the kind of personnel that we have, ranging from engineers, lawyers, accountant among others.”

He added that in every course numbering about 60 that every year is a 10 months programme and those period personnel from the army, air forces, navy, private sectors, professional bodies participates. He mentioned that there is no problem the association had not researched into including federal road safety, micro finances banks, are researched from NIPSS.

He said: “Most of the problems we are looking for consultant, professionals to solve, men and women that went to NIPSS have researched it and now we have the 39th set graduating in November, so we have 39 project for concluding seminars and in times of individuals we have got about 1,830 graduate from NIBSS.
“I want to tell you that all members are ready to do what the association tells them to do irrespective of thi private activities,”he added.